Much scarier than fellow possessed child flick The Exorcist, which predated it by three years, The Omen contains some of the most memorable untimely deaths in cinema history.

Early on, there's the dramatic suicide that brings an end to newly adopted Damien's birthday party. Then the terrible accident with a sheet of glass in Rome that almost makes you thankful for European health and safety legislation. And who, after watching The Omen, has been able to walk through Bishop's Park on a windy day without worrying about being impaled by a wobbly church spire?

All this drama might have been averted had Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck) and his wife Katherine (Lee Remick) had the foresight to check the newborn orphan's scalp for any suspicious marks before they took him home. Or the courage of conviction to send him back to the orphanage after he deliberately pushes his pregnant mother off a stool.

Harvey Spencer Stevens, who at his audition punched director Richard Donner in the testicles, is genuinely terrifying as the juvenile Antichrist.